This invention is directed to a method of tucking refastenable side seams into a main body of a pant-like garment while preventing creases in the refastenable seams, and maintaining control over the fold locations.
Pant-like absorbent garments, such as adult incontinence wear, infant and children""s diapers, swim wear and training pants, typically have adhesive or mechanical fasteners on the sides for donning and removal, or else rely on a stretchable waist opening and leg openings to slide on and off the wearer. Absorbent garments that slide on and off a wearer can be messy after use. Furthermore, in order to remove such absorbent garments, the wearer""s clothing covering the absorbent garments, such as pants, must generally be completely removed. Checking the status of the wearer""s absorbent garment contents can be just as cumbersome as changing the absorbent garment.
Refastenable seams including mechanical fasteners, such as, for example, hook and loop fasteners, have been found to be particularly beneficial when used in conjunction with pant-like absorbent garments. Refastenable seams allow for the garment to be easily applied and removed, as well as periodically opened to check for exudates and closed if no exudates are found. Absorbent garments having elastic side panels or other non-refastenable side panels can have the side panels tucked into the center of the product for packaging purposes. Absorbent garments having refastenable side seams, on the other hand, can be prone to poor fastener performance if the side panels are tucked into the product in such a way as to cause creasing of a resilient fastening component.
When the refastenable side seam includes a resilient fastening component such as a hook component, these creases can deaden the hooks, thereby reducing the engageable area. As a result, a creased fastener tends to possess lower peel and/or shear values than uncreased fasteners. Products with severe and/or multiple fastener creases tend to be most apt to pop open during application and wear. Fastener creases appear to be more of an issue for hook components than for loop components due to the possibility of permanent deformation of hook material compared to the relative flexibility of loop material. A major cause of these performance-impairing creases is believed to be attributable to the manner and orientation in which the sides of the garments are tucked.
Certain automated processes exist in which the side panels are mechanically tucked into the garments along a conveyor prior to the garments reaching a stacking or accumulation device. In such processes, as the garment is being conveyed towards the stacker, mechanical blades rotate or travel with the product machine direction and push the side panels in from each side of the conveyor. The location of the mechanical blades is relied upon to control the location of the resulting folds. Alternatively, pneumatic forces, such as air bars are used to tuck the side panels. However, the location of the side panel folds is often inconsistent when such processes are used, thus resulting in creased fasteners.
Some process use vacuum to hold products on a conveyor, but the vacuum is applied effectively only at the center of the chassis, and at a moderate level, for example around 15 inches of water. Such use of a vacuum is not effective along the sides of the chassis.
There is a need or desire for a method of tucking side panels in which the location of the side folds can be controlled and the occurrence of damaged or creased fastening components can be reduced or eliminated.
In response to the discussed difficulties and problems encountered in the prior art, a new method of tucking refastenable side seams has been discovered.
The present invention is directed to a method of tucking a pair of opposing refastenable side seams into a body portion of a pant-like garment in which the fastening components can be positioned in a flat orientation and the location of the side panel folds can be controlled. The method involves the steps of positioning the body portion of the pant-like garment between an upper conveyor having an upper vacuum zone and a lower conveyor having a lower vacuum zone, with the refastenable side seams in a fastened position. The garment can be placed on the lower conveyor first, then moved along the lower conveyor toward the upper conveyor. The opposing vacuum forces from the upper and lower vacuum zones pull apart a front region of the body portion from a back region of the body portion. With the body portion in an open position, the side seams are pushed into the body portion towards one another, thereby creating longitudinal folds in the garment along outer longitudinal edges of the upper and lower vacuum zones. A pair of mechanical tucking blades can be used to push the side panels into the body portion.
The vacuum zones extend in the transverse direction, or cross machine direction, relative to the garment. The longitudinal edges of the vacuum zones determine the location of the longitudinal folds. The vacuum zone edges remain constant relative to the fold points of the side panels, thus producing consistent side panel folds. The vacuum zone edge remains constant at least through the tucking of the side panels and may be shut off later.
The tucking depth of the side portions can be controlled by the depth or height of the mechanical tucking blades, and the width of vacuum dead plates or a discrete vacuum hole pattern. During the tucking process, the mechanical tucking blades are suitably positioned either between the fastening component and the upper conveyor, or between the fastening component and the lower conveyor, to arrange the fastening components in a flat configuration in order to avoid causing any creases in the fastening components.
Once the side seams are tucked into the garment, the longitudinal folds can be held in place by reducing the gap between the upper and lower conveyors. The conveyors can run either parallel to one another or can be pivoted to reduce the exit gap between the conveyors. The garment can exit the upper conveyor and continue to process on top of the lower conveyor, using the same vacuum level and width ranges as used during the tucking process, to hold the fasteners down flat. After leaving the conveyors, the garment can be compressed with the fastening components lying flat within the body portion. The compressed garment can transferred to a stacker where the folds can be held in place, for example using stacker fingers or other suitable means.
With the foregoing in mind, it is a feature and advantage of the invention to provide a method of tucking refastenable side seams in which the fastening components can be positioned in a flat orientation and the location of the longitudinal folds can be controlled and consistent.